Jazz avant-garde: «Hambone» y «Los Olvidados» [ESP/ENG]

Archie Shepp is an American jazz tenor saxophonist, writer, composer and teacher. In the 1960s he was a radical agitator willing to talk about the social injustice and the anger and rage he felt outright. His first influences were tenor saxofonists Ben Webster and John Coltrane. His sound has a rough tone, a broad vibrato, an intense swing, loud screams and multifonic effects, and his solos are fiery, hard and implacable, played with great enthusiasm. Born in the city of Fort Lauderdale, at first his instrument was the alto saxophone and in 1960 he played with dance orchestras and a Latin jazz group in New York, but then he switched to the tenor saxophone and joined pianist Cecil Taylor’s quartet, precursor of free jazz, for two years. In 1962 he recorded his first album Archie Shepp - Bill Dixon Quartet with Savoy Records. He also formed the New York Contemporary Five with John Tchicai on alto saxophone, Don Cherry on trumpet, Don Moore on double bass and J.C. Moses on drums, with which he recorded five albums and toured Europe, but the group dissolved in 1964. He then signed a contract with the Impulse! label, with which he recorded 17 albums, and in 1965 he participated in John Coltrane’s essencial album Ascension.

Fuente

In 1965 Shepp published Fire Music, where you can see the beginning of his political awakening and whose title comes from an African ceremonial musical tradition. In the mid-1960s he formed groups with trombonists Roswell Rudd and Grachan Moncur III, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and drummer Beaver Harris. In 1967 he recorded The Magic of Ju-Ju, which includes a small African percussion ensemble. At that time, many African American jazz musicians were attracted to African musical and cultural traditions, and Shepp was at the forefront of this movement along with tenor saxofonist Pharoah Sanders. At the same time he wrote essays linking free jazz with black militancy, read his own poetry and quotes from James Baldwin and Malcom X in his recordings, and composed theater plays.

Fuente

But in the 1970s the fire and fury of his principles disappeared and he began to perform a kind of rhythm and blues based on swing, and in the 1980s, blues, ballads, spirituals and bebop. From 1968 to 1972 he taught at the State University of New York in Buffalo and from 1972 to 2002 at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. During the 1980s he also made numerous tours for Europe and recorded with pianists Horace Parlan and Jasper van’t Hof, and double bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. In 1981 he appeared in the Canadian documentary Imagine the Sound about free jazz together with other figures belonging to this style. In 1984 he also appeared in the French documentary on Sun Ra Mystery, Mr. Ra. Sheep continues touring and recording to the present day.

Fuente

Johnson and Chambers begin to play, and soon the rest of the group joins in to expose a very robust theme because of the wide wind section with constant instrumental changes and blocks of dark and dissonant chords. The first to make his solo is Curson while the rest of the rhythm section supports him in the background with a repetitive phrase. Curson exchanges balanced passages with more impetuous and daring ones, but in the end he is left alone with the rhythm section and calms down. Suddenly the group delivers an arrangement to give way to Brown with a suggestive and bluesy discourse in which he introduces more intense phrases. Then the group plays a new arrangement and Orange enters playing slowly, but well articulatedly while the rest of the rhythm section supports him in the background below until everyone settles down. Right away the repetitive support comes back and Shepp reappears with a harsh sound playing in a free and passionate way, sometimes becoming overwhelming and at the end the group calms down again. To finish, the group re-exposes a small section of the theme.

Fuente

Translated with the help of DeepL

Fuente

This theme is very long and has several parts. At first it’s nice and innocent, but then it increases its intensity. There is a break and then it becomes unpredictable and abstract. Then it changes at a faster rate, but returns to its previous experimental nature. After that Chambers intervenes and later provides a regular rhythm in which the musicians play more fluently, but it doesn't last long because sudden changes in both rhythm and melody quickly occurs. At last, Curson starts playing broken phrases, the rest of the rhythm section makes a riff and Curson follows, but now his melodic line is more continuous. The riff sounds again, after a while the group plays a small arrangement and Curson takes the mute, lowers the speed and ends his solo. There is another silence and the group comes back at a slow rhythm playing freely. Next Brown enters interpreting a short passage and the group returns, but this time with more force and speed to give way to Shepp with his trademark free jazz improvisation while the riff sounds again several times throughout his solo. Shepp squeezes the saxophone in a heartbreaking manner until the group briefly comes back and ends abruptly.

Fuente

℗ Impulse! Records